Futurity.org » Stony Brook University

MRI allows peek into faulty batteries

James Devitt-NYU — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:55:24 +0000

NYU (US) — Researchers have developed a way to use MRI technology to see inside batteries without destroying them.

There is an ever-increasing need for advanced batteries for portable electronics, such as phones, cameras, and music players, as well as to power electric vehicles and to facilitate the distribution and storage of energy derived from renewable energy sources.

Obesity is painful, study of 1 million finds

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:40:12 +0000

STONY BROOK (US) — A clear association between obesity and pain—with higher rates of pain identified in the heaviest people—was found in a study of more than one million Americans.

“Our findings confirm and extend earlier studies about the link between obesity and pain. These findings hold true after we accounted for several common pain conditions and across gender and age,” says Arthur Stone, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stony Brook University.

We text and walk and veer off course

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:11:04 +0000

STONY BROOK (US) — Talking or texting on a phone while walking can make it difficult to stay on course and may interfere with memory recall, research shows.

Thirty-three men and women in their 20s, all of whom used a cell phone and were familiar with texting, participated in a study reported in the journal Gait & Posture.

Minnows may inherit ideal temperatures

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:28:08 +0000

STONY BROOK (US) — Fish can be preconditioned to grow fastest in the same water temperature their parents experienced, say researchers.

This preconditioning, known as transgenerational plasticity (TGP), occurs whenever environmental cues experienced by either parent prior to fertilization change how offspring respond to the environment.

Boats vs. whales in Cape Cod Bay

A'ndrea Elyse Messer-Penn State — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:50:58 +0000

PENN STATE (US) — To keep endangered whales from being hit and injured by boats in Cape Cod Bay, researchers are tracking the tiny crustaceans the whales feast on 18 hours a day.

North Atlantic right whales, like Southern and North Pacific right whales, are an endangered species. The researchers report this week in Biology Letters that “North Atlantic right whales have the largest per capita record of vessel strikes of any large whale population in the world.”

These whales are susceptible to being struck by boat propellers when they are in the bay because the whales feast on copepods—tiny crustaceans the size of sesame seeds—that school in very large masses just below the water’s surface. The whales eat for about 18 hours, consuming between 125 to 400 pounds of copepods an hour with their mouths open like large scoops.

Impulsive neutrinos change their flavor

Jim Scott CU-Boulder — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:32:36 +0000

U. COLORADO-BOULDER (US) — Neutrinos can spontaneously change flavors, a finding that may help explain why the universe is made up mostly of matter.

The new research is a significant step in discovering why matter trumped antimatter at the time of the big bang, helping to create virtually all the galaxies and stars in the universe.

Super carbon denser than diamonds

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:41:56 +0000

STONY BROOK U. (US) — Three newly discovered structures of carbon may be three percent denser, more brilliant, and better able to handle pressure than diamonds.

The research is reported in the journal Physical Review B.

400,000 women raped in 1 year

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:30:57 +0000

STONY BROOK U. (US) — In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 400,000 women ages 15 to 49 were raped in a 12-month period. That is 1,152 every day, 48 every hour, and four every five minutes.

A new study based on an examination of government-collected and nationally representative data from the country—and published in the American Journal of Public Health—shows that levels of rape and sexual violence against women in the country are 26 times higher than official United Nations estimates.

Why Amazon is hopping with treefrogs

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:24:10 +0000

STONY BROOK U. (US) — The intermingling of different treefrogs that lasted for more than 60 million years was instrumental in the biodiversity of trees, birds, and insects in the Amazon Basin.

“Treefrogs are a particularly important group to study for understanding amphibian diversity, because they can make up nearly half of all amphibian species in some rainforest sites,” says John J. Wiens, associate professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University.

‘Zip codes’ keep track of sharks

Jacob Levich-Stony Brook — Mon, 02 May 2011 12:31:18 +0000

STONY BROOK (US) — A taste in the Asian community for shark fin soup is claiming tens of millions of animals each year. Now scientists are using shark DNA to determine origins of fins turning up in markets around the world.

An international team of scientists used DNA to determine that groups of dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus) and copper sharks (Carcharhinus brachyurus), both large apex predators living in different coastal regions across the globe, are separate populations of each species.